I Was Once A Treehouse
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: There are many things humans don't know about angels. CRACK. GEN. Spoilers for 5.21 and 5.22. Contains llamas.


**Warnings/Rating:** GEN, PG. CRAAACK. (And a little schmoop). No animals were harmed in this fic. Set between 5.21 and 5.22, spoilers. See A/N for elaboration. Also, warning for Llama-fic. o.O

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Just for fun.

**Summary:** There are many things humans don't know about angels.

**A/N:** Absolute crack that doesn't even properly fit into the series timeline. It's kind of wedged into a week-long interstitial crack-space between 5.21 and 5.22 where Sam, Dean and unpowered!Castiel forgot all about the Apocalypse for a while and went driving around in the Impala together. It's crack, okay? And yet also a wee bit of unnecessary retcon. Sort of.

-.-

**I Was Once a Treehouse**  
by CaffieneKitty

-.-

It was funny until the llamas showed up.

Llamas are big suckers, and they spit. A herd of llamas wants something, like to cuddle up next to your family's grounded pet angel, there's not much that can stop it. Dean, Sam and Castiel had barely made it out of Fairfield, and it had taken two runs through an automated car wash (which Dean would never normally do to his baby) to clear off all the llama-mucus.

It had started a few days before. Right after Dean had gotten Death's ring, animals around Bobby's junkyard had gone nuts. At first they thought it had something to do with the rings, but it didn't seem to matter where the rings were, together or apart. Every rat and stray rummaging in the junk piles came out and accosted Castiel. They all figured that until the animals at Bobby's junkyard calmed down, it was best to take Castiel on the road. Castiel didn't object.

Except it wasn't just animals at Bobby's.

Outside the motel room, a short distance away from the the door, Castiel sat, staring glumly at the concrete, surrounded by animals. At first it had just been birds, cats, raccoons, dogs, a memorable skunk. Small everyday critters, which was weird enough, thank you.

Dean peered out through the curtains.

"Are they all still there?" asked Sam.

"Yep."

"Cas okay?"

Dean shrugged. "I think so. I can't see much of him but nothing seems to be unfriendly towards him. Or _too_ friendly."

Sam continued entering increasingly bizarre searches into Google. "It's weird that they aren't attacking each other. Cats and dogs and birds."

"And mice."

"Yeah?"

"He's got a whole schwackload of mice now. This motel must've been loaded with 'em. Whenever we leave, this place should pay us for luring away their rodent infestation." Dean, momentarily satisfied Castiel was safe and nothing was eating him, turned from the window. "Found anything out about why Cas's gone all Pied Piper on us?"

"Not really. There's not a lot of concrete info on angel problems. Actually, none. And it's not anywhere close to the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi so it can't be that. Did you try asking him?"

"He wouldn't say." Dean peered out between the curtains at the distant concert of car horns. "Aw crap."

"What?"

"Come on Sam, we gotta get him out of here, now!" Dean grabbed his bag and his jacket.

Sam folded the laptop and stuffed it into his bag. "What?"

"Look," said Dean, throwing the curtains back. A herd of about twenty long-necked camel-like animals trotted along the street about a block away, disrupting traffic and heading straight for the hotel parking lot.

"Crap. Llamas. Think they're the same herd from Fairfield and followed us here?"

"I don't know! I'll get the car, you get Cas," said Dean as he swung out the door.

Sam followed Dean out and peeled off towards Castiel. He didn't get within five feet of the animal-mobbed angel before the attacks came. Birds flew in his face, twittering threateningly. Cats hissed, dogs barked, mice squeaked. None of them laid paw or claw on Sam though, strictly vocal about letting him know that they were all ready and willing to defend the unpowered angel.

"Hello, Sam," Castiel's more-gloomy-than-usual voice rose over the noise. Sam could barely see the angel sitting on a cement parking divider through the defending animals. Birds fluttered around Castiel's head, cats and dogs circled his feet and mice scampered everywhere.

A spotted mouse piddled defiantly on Sam's shoe and scurried away. Sam rolled his eyes and was very glad Castiel's menagerie contained no skunks this time. "Come on. We have to get you out of here. The llamas are coming."

Castiel sighed and stood, dislodging the cats curled up in his lap and sending a few mice tumbling into the pockets of his trenchcoat.

The Impala roared as Dean pulled up far away from the Castiel-centric zoo but within quick sprinting distance and popped the back and passenger doors open. "Come on! Llamas!"

Castiel was divesting his pockets of rodents as fast as he could, but more kept climbing up his trouser legs. "Come on!" Sam grabbed the arm of Castiel's trenchcoat.

The animals went berserk. More berserk.

"Run! We can outrun most of them if we can get in the car before the llamas-"

"I know," said Castiel, setting two more mice down atop a Volvo before running toward the Impala, out-paced quickly by Sam's longer stride. They were followed by a terrier, a mixed-breed mutt, a daschund with a checkered scarf, a ginger tom, two calico cats and a rolling carpet of mice. Birds dove past Sam's face as he got into the car, passing Dean and shooting out the open driver's side window.

"Cas, you in?" Dean shouted, rolling his window up lest the birds fly back inside.

The back door shut and Dean hit the gas before Castiel could answer, quickly outdistancing the short-legged portion of the menagerie that had made the pilgrimage and putting most of the parking lot between them. But it was too late. The llamas trotted around the corner and blocked the parking lot exit in a milling crowd.

"Sonofabitch!" Dean hit the brakes.

The tallest llama near the center puckered its rubbery lips and spat at the windshield, scoring a direct hit.

"Son of a _bitch_." Dean matched glares with the llama as the Impala's wipers slapped grass-flecked llama spit off the glass. Behind the vehicle the menagerie was catching up. Some of the birds fluttered in to perch on the crowd of llamas, chirping threateningly at the big black beast that had eaten their angelic perch.

"What now?" asked Sam.

Dean glanced in the rear-view mirror at their furred and feathered pursuers then honked at the llamas. The llamas looked at each other and began to work up more spit.

Castiel rolled down his window.

"What are you doing?"

"It's fine. I'll..." Castiel sighed again. "Just keep the car going forward." He stuck his head and one arm out the window.

The llamas in front of the car jostled over to Castiel's side of the car, slowly clearing a path to drive into. The car rolled forward while the llamas sniffed and nuzzled at Castiel's arm and face. Dean tensed when one seemed like it was going to bite Castiel's head, but it only mouthed its lips in the angel's hair, slicking it up in llama-drool spikes.

Dean met Castiel's eyes in the mirror.

"It's okay. Keep driving."

The llamas crowding the car kept the rest of the smaller animals back, though several of the birds took advantage of Castiel's open window and fluttered in. Once they cleared the parking lot, they left the llamas and other animals in the dust and shooed the birds out the windows.

-.-

Dean waited until they were on a highway and going too fast for birds to keep up before questioning the angel.

"All right, Cas, what's up with the Doctor Dolittle schtick?"

Castiel gave Dean the pained look Sam had mentally dubbed the 'please speak a language I understand' look.

"He means the animals, Cas," clarified Sam.

Dean waved a hand irritably. "Yeah that. You know what's going on with the animals, spill."

"It's... embarrassing." Castiel fidgeted, llama-spit and regurgitated bits of grass drying in his hair.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "The man with no concept of personal space is embarrassed about his animal problem."

Castiel sighed yet again. "Normally, before an angel is assigned to be embodied, they need to reach a certain level of... maturity."

"...Okay?"

"This," Castiel said, plucking a happily snoozing mouse out of his coat pocket and cupping it in his hand, "is why."

"So you're saying... What exactly?"

"Before angels are fully matured, animals, specifically warm-blooded higher vertebrates except for primates, can sense their budding Grace." The mouse half-woke, nibbled on Castiel's thumb gently before turning around and going back to sleep, making little buzzing noises. "They find it... entrancing. Something they want to be close to and protect."

"And the llamas?" asked Dean pointedly.

"Camelids such as llamas seem to be particularly sensitive, and particularly protective."

"And you couldn't say something about this before we picked that hotel next to a llama ranch in Fairfield?"

Sam held up a hand. "Wait. Fully matured. So when you nuked the angels in Van Nuys-"

"-you, uh, de-matured?" finished Dean.

"My actions expended a great deal of my Grace. I'm surprised to still be in existence at all." Castiel absently ran a finger down the head of the mouse before tucking it back into a pocket of his trenchcoat. "But it seems that I didn't lose my Grace entirely, it was... reset. It's re-growing, slowly. This is a phase. It will pass."

Dean grinned. "So this is like a second childhood for you? Or second baby angel-hood?"

Castiel's face turned sour. "More like puberty."

Dean nearly had to pull the Impala over because he and Sam were laughing so hard, but didn't because they knew if they stopped they'd have to escape from every fieldmouse, bird and gopher in a five-mile radius.

-.-

The rest of the week was manageable. Small animals were easier to cope with and outrun, so they didn't worry about those too much. They stayed away from heavily skunk-populated areas. They also stayed out of cattle country and away from zoos. Wherever they went, the llamas eventually found them, so they kept moving as much as possible.

There was one mishap in Decatur, after which Sam Googled up the schedules of every traveling circus in the lower 48 states and navigated wide berths around them all. Among the many things they never wanted to see in the Impala's rearview mirrors again was a charging elephant with a side of tigers.

No matter how clean the hotels they stayed at were, protective mouse or two had always found Castiel's pockets by morning. Choirs of songbirds clustered around the windows like a cross between Mary Poppins and Alfred Hitchcock.

The Impala needed washed frequently.

-.-

A few days later, Castiel wasn't in the room when they got up. Dean called his cellphone immediately.

"Where the hell are you?"

"A petting zoo."

"What! Are you _insane?_" Dean said, "There's llamas at petting zoos!"

"No, it's okay." Castiel gave his location and hung up.

"What's up? Llamas?" Sam muttered, still half-asleep.

"Cas has gone nuts and we need to rescue him from a petting zoo. Come on."

-.-

The crowds of people and thundering herds of kids at the farmer's market didn't seem to be too disturbed. Sam and Dean made their way to the petting zoo.

They spotted Castiel right away as the focal point of every parent nearby. A strange man in a trenchcoat sitting cross-legged by the petting zoo enclosure was making them all wary. The parents were the only ones paying him any attention though, the calves, rabbits, baby chicks and assorted other young farm animals were showing no signs of interest in the angel.

As Sam and Dean jogged up, one baby llama wobbled over toward Castiel. He reached out a hand towards the llama, but the llama merely sniffed it, found it to be lacking food and bounded off to where the children had fistfuls of alfalfa hay.

"It's over." Castiel said without looking up. "I thought it might be when there were no birds at the window this morning."

"Okay, Cas, that's great," Dean said. "Could you maybe tell us _before_ you go wandering off next time?"

Castiel looked up at Dean and blinked.

"So does this mean you've got your mojo back?" Sam asked.

"No," said Castiel, standing up. "But that phase of re-growth has passed. Superficial damage to my vessel will begin to heal at an accelerated rate, and I may be able to teleport once."

"Well, hang onto it for a special occasion," advised Dean.

"I intend to."

They stood for a minute watching the kids playing with the animals.

"Guess now that your whole animal thing is dealt with we should head back to Bobby's, get on with the Apocalypse, hunh?" asked Dean, glancing at Sam and then away.

"Guess so," said Sam, looking at the grass at his feet.

The baby llama wobbled back over to where the group of men stood by the fence and blinked ridiculously long eyelashes at them. A bunny hopped through the straw to join him, nose wiggling in an entirely unthreatening manner. He was followed by a cluster of stumbling ducklings.

"I think," Castiel said, "perhaps we could stay for a little while before we return to Bobby's?"

"...Yeah."

- - -  
(that's it.)

_Post A/N:_ Title from the Llama song. Where's the retcon, you might ask. See, between 5.21 and 5.22, the scratches on Castiel's face disappear completely. I figure either his angel battery had recharged some, or there was a week long group road-trip where he was mauled by friendly animals between the two episodes. Or both. And since I also figure he had to have teleported himself and Bobby into the Stull cemetery, that's included too. And the ending? Well, I couldn't have them all go to a petting zoo and then haul them all off immediately to get back into the events of 5.22.


End file.
